it has become very trendy using only sabermetrics. Most of the people who use them think they understand them, and think that they are real data, which they are not. That is why you evaluate based on a variety of stats and saber metrics to evaluate talent, but some people believe that rubbing sabermetrics in peoples faces on message boards makes them look like they are educated and smart, when in fact, they arent. It is really easy to go on fangraphs and look at things that arent true and cherry pick certain metrics to back up a cliam. When the try to sell something that isnt true is the best part of the whole "saber bible lovers" routine.
The greatest thing about saber, and my discussion with a certain specific member of a baseball team who does this for a living, was that the mainstream sites are so far behind what is actually being used in baseball by the advanced scouts. like the word used by RICE CUBE, Proprietary.
You keep saying these stats don't work yet bring nothing back but a bunch of hogwash strawman arguments.
Rather than sitting there and saying something without really saying anything bring something to the table. You can say stats like wOBA and what not aren't "real" or some bull shit like that, but that doesn't mean anything. The stats do what they are supposed to do so in that effect they are real. It's not just a bunch of made up numbers. They have a specific reason for being used, and that is to figure out which player is better or worth more to the team. Something that the "real" stats do not do. Is WAR perfect? Of course not, nothing is EVER going to be perfect because you have teams like the 2007 Diamondbacks who get outscored yet make the playoffs. How can that be predicted? Sabermetrics is not about being perfect its about getting the best correlation to wins/runs that you can get. So again WAR isn't perfect, but if you would like to show me a stat that correlates better to team wins than a WAR stat I would gladly start using it, but the only stat I can think of that
might correlate better isn't used for individual players and is instead only a team stat. Though I doubt anyone on here knows what stat I am talking about. Well dabs and RC might.
Lots of time and effort go into this, with a lot more numbers than I doubt you understand. You keep saying that people, namably me, don't know what they are talking about and yet I do. Believe me. I have read books. I have done plenty of studying. If I don't understand something I will read and learn about it before I start to use it and bring it up in arguments. The reason I don't bring up stats like SIERA very often is because well I haven't really looked much into it. Mostly because I don't much care for BP, because for the most part all of their stats have been locked behind closed doors and unable to be accessed by the general public. Why would I want to use a stat I can't actually calculate myself?
You always have these little things about how you talked to this person in the organization, or you know the financial numbers better than any one talking about them because you have "seen the papers", you can practice law, and all of this, and yet you spend your time moderating a message board, and playing video games? Doesn't that all seem a bit strange? You keep saying these things, and honestly the more you say them the less I am starting to believe any of them are true. You can be whoever you want to be on the internet I suppose, but at this point it is getting to be a little bit funny how you can do all of these things yet never seem to do them.
Regardless. Are there stats out there that are above what fangraphs is using? Of course there are, but I don't have access to those types of stats. There is a reason people like Tom Tango, Bill James, Sean Smith, and Mitchel Lichtman have been hired by professional baseball teams and people like Dave Cameron haven't.
Dave Cameron simply breaks down the numbers and writes/blogs about them and made a website for people to come and have the stats easily accessible to the general public and a place for people to discuss them. Do I know everything about baseball or the stats that are used? Of course not. I have a job, I have a life, I am going back to school. I may not know it all, and honestly never will because newer better stats are coming out each year, but I have done the due diligence over the past 4 years to know enough that I know what I am talking about. As much as it might break your heart to know that I know a little bit about stats I do, and I will continue to use them, until you actually bring some sort of argument against the use of these stats other than a strawman argument like "they aren't real".
